


The Poetry and Philosophy 

OF 

TEIVIVYSON 

PR 5588 ^ HandlMMk of Six Lectures by 

.G7 Edward Howard Griggs 

Copy 1 



PHom 2B omnim, nmt 



B. W. HUEBSCH 

Publisher 
NEW YORK 



The Poetry and Philosophy 

OF 

XEIMIVYSON 



A Handbook of Six Lectures by 

Edward Hoivard Griggs 



B. W. HUEBSCH 

Publisher 
NEW YORK 



LIBRAHYnf CONGRESS 
Two Conies Received 

AUG 2 1906 

^opyriifnt Entry 
CUSS/il. XXc. NO, 

JSX333 

COPY B. 



>7 



Copyright, igo6, by ! 
EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS 



THE OUTIKG PRESS 
DEPOSIT, N. Y. 



CROSSING THE BAR. 

"Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep. 

Too full for sound and foam. 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell. 

And after that the dark! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar." 

— ^Tennyson. 



INDEX. 



Note: Spirit of the Course . 



I. The Life and Early Work of Tennyson .... 9 
II. The Idylls of the King 14 

III. The Holy Grail and the Passing of Arthur . . . .20 

IV. In Memoriam: The Period of Grief and Struggle . . . 26 

V. In Memoriam: The Cantos of Faith and Love . . .30 

VI. The Expression of Tennyson's Spiritual Philosophy in Briefer 

Poems .......... 35 



Book List 40 



SPIRIT OF THE COURSE. 

THE interest of this course is divided almost equally between the 
appreciation of Tennyson's matchless art and the study of his 
philosophy and his message to the modem spirit. The work 
centers upon the two masterpieces of Tennyson: The Idylls of the 
King, in which his artistic power is most fully revealed, and In Memo- 
riam, the most complete expression of his spiritual message. Certain 
of the more remarkable of his shorter poems will also be studied as 
culminating expressions at once of his art and his philosophy. 

There are two widely different elements in Tennyson's contribution 
to the modem spirit, corresponding to the motives of his two master- 
pieces. His poetry fulfills for us something of the function of land- 
scape painting, relieving us from the stress and hurry of present life. 
The more sordid aspects of the stmggle for existence shocked Tennyson. 
The breaking-down of aristocratic forms, the bare, greedy character of 
half-bom democracy offended him. He felt that the solution of the 
social problem lay rather in a return to the manners of an earlier period, 
under the benignant leadership of the gentleman, than in the comple- 
tion of the stmggle toward democracy in which we find ourselves 
involved. Thus it was with a feeling of relief that he turned from the 
life about him to the world of the Arthurian story with its old chivalric 
legends, full of dim, laiightly figures and fair, unearthly ladies, weaving 
with mystic paces and waving hands the golden and rainbow web of a 
life of dreams. That Tennyson's meditation upon the material of the 
Arthurian story covered a period of more than fifty years is evidence 
of the place it occupied in his own thinking; and the poems clothing it 
form one of Tennyson's great contributions to the modem spirit, not 
only through the gift of calming and exalting beauty, but because, 
clothed in the dim forms of the remote world of chivalry, the eternal 
realities of the human spirit are revealed with an added beauty and 
mystery through the golden radiance or the gray mist of the years 
that lie between. 

The other gift of Tennyson is in relation to the great problems of 
faith. Uniting as he did the best results of the older philosophy with 
a full, if sometimes reluctant, acceptance of the conclusions of physical 
science, his poetry answers pecuharly certain needs of modem Ufe. 

7 



No one else has voiced our doubt and questioning more completely, 
yet Tennyson rises in In Memoriam, the poem that reveals the heart 
of his own experience, to a calm, exultant faith, including not ignoring 
doubt. His desire that Crossing the Bar should stand at the end of 
every complete edition of his works reveals his thought of it as a kind 
of last confession of his belief. It is as satisfyingly perfect in its limpid 
music as it is serene and exalted in emotion. Like a benediction at the 
end of a beautiful service it rounds the impression of Termyson's mes- 
sage and life, affirming the accepted basis of Christian faith, but freed 
from hard dogmatism and stated in terms of the highest experience, 
voicing the heroic attitude in the presence of the unknown that is 
expressed in King Arthur or Ulysses, but softened by the intimate 
tenderness that comes from the sweet and smart of personal living, 
with an appreciation of the character of Christ. Tennyson's last word 
it is and worthy of all that goes before. Without a great positive con- 
tribution of original thought and new vision of life, Tennyson's tender 
and delicate appreciation of certain phases of experience, his unerring 
grasp of broad moral distinctions, his sense of the unity of law and the 
fundamental sanity of the universe at the heart, his unfailing hold upon 
the great thought of the past and the deeper basis of Christian faith, 
render him a spiritual teacher of unique value in a time when the old 
barriers and props have been shaken down, and all men who think 
have been forced into the intellectual arena to meet and conquer the 
sphinx-problems or die. 



I. THE LIFE AND EARLIER WORK OF TENNYSON. 

LECTURE OUTLINE. 

Introduction. — To study the art and message of the poet who more 
than any other dominated the hterature of the EngUsh-speaking world 
for more than half of the nineteenth century. As such a leader, pecul- 
iar significance in our study of his work. Poetry always fulfilling 
certain high spiritual functions — but these especially important in 
relation to modem life, and nowhere a better example of them than 
in Tennyson. 

Poetry and life. — Art expressing the whole human spirit — intellect, 
emotion and %vall. Contrast philosophy and science. The two motifs 
in the progress of the human spirit: waves of science and waves of 
religion; extension of the area of knowledge and then the return to 
the spirit of man. Compare the Occident and the orient; scholasticism 
and mysticism; Aristotle and Plato. 

The life of appreciation as compared with the Ufe of the understand- 
ing. How much of our joy depending upon the former. Love, faith, 
response to poetry, as in the life of appreciation. Expression of this 
life in art; hence the spiritual functions of poetry. 

Poetry and modem needs. — Special significance in the service of 
poetry in our time. The tremendous advance in science, in the accu- 
mulation of knowledge, during the nineteenth century. Thus vast 
widening of the conception of the physical universe. Compare effects 
of astronomy and biology. Hence God seeming vague and distant, 
human life overshadowed and insignificant. All thinking men forced 
into the arena to struggle with the great problems of Ufe as only a rare 
philosopher was compelled to meet them in past times. 

Thus the significance of poetry as a revelation of the human spirit; 
and of Tennyson as voicing the doubts and despair of modem men, as 
rising to a great spiritual solution, and as creating a world of beauty 
that in itself calms and exalts. 

The life of Tennyson (1809-1892).— The family background of Ten- 
nyson: character of his father; of his mother, as portrayed in Isabel. 
Early love of nature. Effect of the five years (from 7 to 12) at board- 
ing school. Home studies till 19. 

9 



First venture in poetry at 18. Character and promise of Tennyson's 
work in the Poems of Two Brothers. Measure of justification in Ten- 
nyson's view of much of his youthful work as "early rot." 

To Cambridge at 19. Chief influence upon him that of the circle of 
friends he slowly formed. The great men who as youths were his asso- 
ciates. Value of such comradeship for the intellectual and artistic 
hfe. 

The volume of 1830. — At 21 Tennyson's first independent volume of 
poems. Character of the work: chiefly brief songs expressing moods 
or describing nature and women. Much of the poetry mainly experi- 
ments in developing Tennyson's art. Many touches of youthful senti- 
mentality especially in the moody melancholy. Yet remarkable work 
of great promise. Compare with it Browning's Paracelsus written at 
a similar age. 

The volumes of 1833. — A long step in advance taken in Tennyson's 
work published in 1833. Evidence of his permanent interests: fore- 
casting of the Idylls of the King in The Lady of Shalott; of his idylls of 
common life in the Miller's Daughter; of his classical studies in CEnone. 
In all, luxuriant, sensuous imagery subordinated to varied wonderful 
music, with the lyrical expression of moods. 

Reception of the volume. Tennyson's sensitiveness to the criticism 
invited by certain qualities in his work. Withdrawal from the public 
for ten years, spent in developing his art. 

The one tragedy. — Tennyson's wdthdrawal further caused by the 
death of his dearest friend, Arthur Hallam, in 1833. Story of the friend- 
ship. Hallam's character and mind. The composition during seven- 
teen years of Tennyson's monument to his friend. 

The volumes of 1842. — ^Tennyson's silence broken by a work lifting 
him from being merely the center of a group of admiring friends to 
recognized leadership of English poetry. Changes in the early work 
repubhshed. Range of the new work: poems of the Arthurian cycle; 
Enghsh idylls; lyrical expression of moods; classical studies. Illus- 
trations. 

Ulysses. — Tennyson's study of Ulysses not subsequently changed. 
His statement regarding the relation of the poem to his own life. Sig- 
niflcance of the poem not only as one of Tennyson's most masterly 
achievements in art, but as laying down the program of his own conduct. 

The fresh disaster. — Loss at 35 of Tennyson's small property. Special 
bitterness, because crushing his already long postponed hope of mar- 
riage. Story of the meetings with Emily Sellwood. Significance of 
the twenty years' waiting. Compare Love and Duty. 

Reception of a pension in 1845. Brightening fortunes. 

Victory in 1850. — At 41 Tennyson's long period of waiting closed 

10 



In that year: (1) marriage; (2) appointment as poet-laureate; (3) 
publication of In Memoriam. Consequences of the three events. 

Subsequent life. — From 1850 to the end of Tennyson's career a story 
of steady progress. 

His homes; relation to nature; association with friends; studies in 
science, philosophy, literature; travels; honors; financial prosperity. 
The range of his work during this forty years. The masterpiece upon 
which his effort centered. Significance of his attempts in the field of 
drama. 

Characteristics of Tennyson's life. — Tennyson's reticence and exclu- 
siveness. His hatred of the crowd but close attachment to individuals. 
His dwelUng in an inner world of moods and reflections, stimulated by 
nature, friends and books. Long waiting and renunciation in his Ufa 
rather than positive struggle and tragedy. Complete subordination of 
his hfe to his art. Compare Dante, Goethe, Browning. 

Significance of Tennyson's work. — The characteristics of Tennyson's 
life as pointing the significance of his poetry. His work everywhere 
lyrical, even when dramatic in form, playing about character with 
atmosphere rather than creating from within. Contrast the two ways 
of portraying life. Thus an expression of subjective moods, voicing 
the need typical of the time and singing the answer Tennyson achieved. 
Moreover, Tennyson turning away from the hurry and distress of mod- 
em life and bringing consolation from the mystic world of dreams. 

Thus Tennyson's catholicity one of art rather than of life. Compare 
other masters. His Hmitations as well as his excellencies explaining 
his contribution in beauty and in thought. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

" Alfred is one of the few British and foreign figures (a not increasing 
number I think) who are and remain beautiful to me, a true human 
soul, or some authentic approximation thereto, to whom your own soul 
can say, 'Brother!' However, I doubt he will not come [to see me]; 
he often skips me, in these brief visits to town; skips everybody, 
indeed; being a man solitary and sad, as certain men are, dwelUng in 
an element of gloom, carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which 
he is manufacturing into Cosmos. . . . He had his breeding at Cam- 
bridge, as if for the Law or Church; being a master of a small annuity 
on his father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his mother and some 
sisters, to live unpromoted and write Poems. In this way he lives 
still, now here, now there; the family always within reach of London, 
never in it; he himself making rare and brief visits, lodging in some 

11 



old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much under 
it. One of the finest looking men in the world. A great shock of rough 
dusky dark hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, 
most massive yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost 
Indian looking, clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy, smokes infinite 
tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and 
piercing wail, and all that may he between; speech and speculation 
free and plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company 
over a pipe! we shall see what he will grow to." — Carlyle's description 
of Tennyson for Emerson, Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, pp. 
187, 188. 

"There is a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty which 
throws a charm over his impassioned song, more easily felt than 
described, and not to be escaped by those who have once felt it. . . . 
We have remarked five distinctive excellencies of his own manner. 
First, his luxuriance of imagination, and at the same time his control 
over it. Secondly, his power of embodying himself in ideal characters, 
or rather moods of character, with such accuracy of adjustment that 
the circumstances of the narrative seem to have a natural correspond- 
ence with the predominant feeling and, as it were, to be evolved from 
it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, picturesque delineation of 
objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them fused, to 
borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emotion. 
Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures and the exquisite modula- 
tion of harmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of the 
feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in 
these compositions, and importing a mellow soberness of tone, more 
impressive to our minds than if the author had drawn up a set of 
opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the understanding rather than 
to communicate the love of beauty to the heart." — From Arthur 
Hallam's review in the Englishman's Magazine, of Tennyson's vol- 
ume of 1830, Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, pp. 49, 50. 

" Ulysses," my father said, "was written soon after Arthur Hallam's 
death, and gave my feeUng about the need of going forward, and brav- 
ing the struggle of life perhaps more simply than anything in In Memo- 
riam." — Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, p. 196. 



12 



TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1. The range of metrical forms in Tennyson's volume of 1830. 

2. Tennyson's nature-imagery. 

3. The relative importance of music and imagery in Tennyson's 

early work. 

4. Compare Browning's aim in Paracelsus with Tennyson's in the 

poems of 1830. 

5. Tennyson's method of portraying character. 

6. The type of classical interest in Tennyson. 

7. Compare in art and in thought Tennyson's poems of 1830 and 

1833 with Browning's Paracelsus. 

8. Compare Ulysses and Canto XXVI of Dante's Inferno. 

9. The meaning of the mood of vague melancholy expressed in so 

much of Tennyson's work. 

10. The significance of Tennyson's long postponement of personal 

happiness for the sake of his art. 

11. The relative significance of Tennyson's great friendship and of 

his marriage, for his Ufe and development. 



REFERENCES. 

See the general book list, pp. 40-44. Books starred are of special value in connec- 
tion with this course; those double-starred are texts for study or are otherwise of 
foremost importance. 

Tennyson, poems published in 1830, especially: **Claribel; * Noth- 
ing will Die; * All Things will Die; **Isabel; **Mariana; * The Ballad 
of Oriana; * Recollections of the Arabian Nights; poems published in 
1833, especially: **The Lady of Shalott; **The Miller's Daughter; 
**(Enone; *The Lotos-Eaters; *The Sisters; *The Palace of Art; 
poems published in 1842, especially: **Morte d' Arthur; **The Gar- 
dener's Daughter; *Love and Duty; ** Ulysses; **Sir Galahad; **-^^r 
Launcelot and Queen Guinevere; *Locksley Hall; see also **E -ly 
Poems edited by Collins. Brooke, The Poetry of Browning, chapt' I, 
^Browning and Tennyson; * Tennyson, pp. 1-187. Chesterton aid 
Gamett, Tennyson. Corson, Primer of English Verse. Dawson, Mak^s 
of Modern English. Horton, Tennyson. Luce, *Handbook, chapters 
I-VIII. Lyall, Tennyson. Ritchie, Records of Tennyson, Ruskin and 
Browning, pp. 1-72. Van Dyke, * Poetry of Tennyson, pp. 1-128; 
Tennyson. Waugh, Tennyson. 



13 



II. THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 

LECTURE OUTLINE. 

Tennyson and the Arthurian story. — The question as to Tennyson's 
masterpiece. Largely a matter of the critic's temperament and intel- 
lectual interest whether The Idylls of the King or In Memoriam is 
ranked highest. 

Tennyson's early and long continued interest in the legends of IQng 
Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. More than fifty years 
between his earliest and latest poems dealing with this material: thus 
a central interest throughout his artistic life. Compare Faust in rela- 
tion to Goethe. The three distinct types and periods of Tennyson's 
work deaUng with this body of legends of chivalry: significance as 
showing the development of Tennyson's mind and art. 

The Idylls not an epic. Yet elements of unity binding the separate 
_pofims into one larger work of art. 

/ Subject of the Idylls. — The cycle of mediaeval legends growing up 
about the figures in old and dim British history. Good and evil in the 
society developed by mediaeval chivalry. 

Chivalry as representing the adolescent awakening of human society; 
thus appealing particularly to the similar period in the development of 
the individual. Thus value of the surviving legends for education. 

Further value of chivalry for modem life. Especial attractiveness 
to Tennyson, because of his reaction from half-formed democracy and 
the sordid aspects of modem industry. His love of aristocracy, romance 
hui the glamor of mystic dreams. Thus The Idylls of the King a center 
of /nis thought and one of his two great contributions. 

The Coming of Arthur. — ^The introductory book pubUshed after four 
of the Idylls: this as indicating the gradual maturing of Tennyson's 
plan and the growth of the conscious allegory in his mind. 

Arthur's desire for Guinevere: symbol of the hunger of the soul for 
the sensuous through which alone it may find expression. Mistake if 
the allegorical interpretation be pushed too far. 

Forming of the Order. The knightly vow; compare the fuller state- 
ment in Guinevere. Tennyson's view of the ethical value for all time 
of the elements of the vow. 

14 



The Coming of Arthur as expressing the promise, Guinevere and The 
Passing of Arthur the fulfillment. 

Gareth and Lynette. — The second Idyll published late but placed 
here as showing the making of a knight. The test to which Gareth is 
subjected. Tennyson's evident attitude toward humble work. Lyn- 
ette's scorn and transformation. 

Geraint and Enid. — The third Idyll presenting the womanhood of 
chivalry at its best. The contrasting portrait of false womanhood in 
Vivien coming from the same period. 

Tennyson's method of beginning in the middle of a story. Geraint's 
wild quest. Story of Geraint's marriage with Enid; its narration 
hingeing on the incident of the faded dress. 

Ideal of womanhood portrayed in Enid. Virtues emphasized. Value 
of such a type. 

Balin and Balan. — The fourth Idyll last in point of composition, but. 
inserted here to show the effect on other Hves of evil in high places. 
The sin of Lancelot and Guinevere as a dark fate that slowly beats its 
way up to the surface of the legends and spreads its atmosphere of 
gloom and disaster over all the bright romance and shining figures of 
the story. Best illustration of this in Balin and Balan. Moving pathos 
in its conclusion. 

Merlin and Vivien. — Study of the way in which the intellect and skill 
by which Arthur controls nature become the victims of sensual seduc- 
tion; thus conquered by the charm "of woven places and of waving 
hands." Vivien's hate of all good. Her victory. Tennyson's skill in 
depicting a certain type of sensuous appeal. 

Lancelot and Elaine. — This as the tenderest and best of the group of 
Idylls presenting the pure romance of the Arthurian story. 

Lancelot's courtesy: how it all seems wooing to Elaine. Her doom 
in her own iimer idealizing mood. How she reaches out to Lancelot's 
melancholy. Elaine and the shield: how she lived in fantasy. Ten- 
nyson's skill in portraying such an imaginative maiden type of woman- 
hood. 

Contrast Elaine with the earlier Lady of Shalott. Evidence of Ten- 
nyson's development and of the growth of the Arthurian legend in his 
mind. 

Significance of Elaine's tragedy as the involving of the iimocent with 
the guilty. How all darkens to eclipse. 

Pelleas and Ettarre. — Study of careless vice and the marring of 
youthful innocence. Ettarre as fitting mate to Gawain. Contrast 
her with Enid and Elaine. 

The Last Tournament. — The Tournament of the Dead Innocence. 
The victory of Sir Tristram as representing the return to mere lawless 

15 



nature, yet with echoes of the culture that must soon disappear. The 
fate of Tristram. Arthur's return. 

Guinevere. — Conclusion to the romance of the Idylls in Guinevere. 
Significance in the discovery of the sin just at the moment of final 
parting between Lancelot and Guinevere. FUght of the Queen. 

Tennyson's portrayal of Arthur. Question whether his character is 
convincing in spite of the way he is kept above and apart. Arthur's 
preaching: is his virtue too self-conscious? 

Similarity in Tennyson to mediaeval ethics in making woman the 
cause of failure. Is he just to Guinevere? The value of Guinevere as 
a presentation of human life; as a spiritual allegory. 

Artistic qualities of the Idylls. — Tennyson's blank verse. His power 
in melody and description. Characteristic imagery of the Idylls. Ten- 
nyson's power in character-drawing: compare Shakespeare. Intan- 
gible quality of the figures of the Idylls. Compare Enid and Desde- 
mona; Modred and lago. Elements giving artistic unity to the 
Idylls: the character of Arthur, the theme, the underlying fate. 

Impression of mystery in the Idylls. Its source: partly mystery in 
the old legends, but deeper than this the mystery of life. Tennyson's 
constant brooding over it. 

Value of the Idylls for modern life. — Ethical impressiveness. Em- 
phasis of courtesy, truth, personal loyalty, love and loyalty in love. 
Value of Tennyson's message. 

Beauty of the Idylls. Refreshment in turning away from the hurry 
and noise of modem life to this world of golden and gray dreams. 
Magic and mystery in the characters of the poems, like the dim figures 
in some rich, half-effaced tapestry of olden time. Compare Tennyson 
in the Idylls wth the Pre-Raphaelite Enghsh painters. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"Lying, robed in snowy white 
That loosely flew to left and right — 
The leaves upon her falling light — 
Thro' the noises of the night 

She floated down to Camelot: 
And as the boat-head wound along 
The willowy hiUs and fields among, 
They heard her singing her last song 
The Lady of Shalott. 

Under tower and balcony, 
By garden-wall and gallery, 
A gleaming shape she floated by;, 
Dead-pale between the houses high, 
Silent into Camelot. 

16 



Out upon the wharfs they came, 
Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 
And round the prow they read her name 
The Lady of Shalott. 

Who is this? and what is here? 
And in the lighted palace near 
Died the sound of royal cheer; 
And they cross'd themselves for fear, 

All the knights at Camelot: 
But Lancelot mused a little space; 
He said, 'She has a lovely face; 
God in His mercy lend her grace. 

The Lady of Shalott.'" 

—From The Lady of Shalott (published 1833), p. 29.* 

"Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 
Oar'd by the dumb, went upward with the flood — 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter — all her bright hair streaming down — 
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white 
All but her face, and that clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 



And the barge, 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 
There two stood arm'd, and kept the door; to whom, 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier. 
Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd 
'What is it?' but that oarsman's haggard face, 
As hard and still as is the face that men 
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On some cliff-side, appall'd them, and they said, 
'He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she. 
Look how she sleeps — the Fairy Queen, so fair! 
Yea, but how pale! what are they? flesh and blood? 
Or come to take the King to Fairyland? 
For some do hold our Arthur cannot die. 
But that he passes into Fairyland.' 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights: then turned the tongueless man 
From the half-face to ihe full eye, and rose 
And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 
So Arthur bad the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 
Then came the fine Gawain and wonder' d at her, 

* References to Tennyson are to the Olohe Edition. 
17 



And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 
And last the Queen herelf, and pitied her: 
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all: 

'Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat, 
Come, for you left me taking no farewell, 
Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return. 
And therefore my true love has been my death. 
And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, 
And to all other ladies, I make moan: 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot, 
As thou art a knight peerless.'" 
— From Lancelot and Elaine (published 1859), pp. 414r-416. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1. What different stages can be discerned in Tennyson's treatment 

of the Arthurian story? 

2. In what respects are Tennyson's Idylls a true interpretation of 

mediaeval chivalry? In what respects are they distinctively 
modem? 

3. The character and variety of the blank verse in the Idylls. 

4. The type of imagery in the Idylls. 

5. What elements unify the Idylls as a single work of art? 

6. Compare The Lady of Shalott with Lancelot and Elaine. 

7. Compare the earher Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere with 

Guinevere. 

8. The types of womanhood in the Idylls. 

9. The types of manhood in the Idylls. 

10. The knightly vow: Tennyson's view of the value for modem 

society of the virtues it emphasized. 

11. Compare Elaine and OpheUa. 

12. Compare Enid and Desdemona. 

13. Compare Modred and lago. 

14. The ethical and artistic value of the character of Arthur. 

15. Compare in dramatic reahty the characters in the Idylls and in 

Shakespeare. 

16. Compare the treatment of unlawful love in Guinevere and in 

Dante's Francesca da Rimini. 

17. Tennyson's grasp of human life in the Idylls as compared with 

Goethe's in Faust. 

18 



REFERENCES. 

Tennyson, **The Lady of Shalott; *Sir Launcelot and Queen Guine- 
vere; **Idylls of the King: **The Coming of Arthur; **Gareth and 
Lynette; **Geraint and Enid; * Balin and Balan; * Merlin and Vivien; 
** Lancelot and Elaine; *Pelleas and Ettarre; *The Last Tournament; 
** Guinevere. Brooke, Tennyson, pp. 255-319 and 336-370. Collins, 
* Illustrations of Tennyson, chapter IX. Dawson, Makers of Modern 
English, chapters XX and XXIII. Luce, Handbook, chapter XI. 
Maccallum, * Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Nicoll and Wise, Literary 
Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, volume II, pp. 222-272. Van 
Dyke, Poetry of Tennyson, pp. 155-217. 



19 



III. THE HOLY GRAIL AND THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
LECTURE OUTLINE. 

The Holy Grail. — Throughout the Idylls a faint spiritual allegory 
giving Tennyson's philosophy of human life regarded objectively. 
This allegory rising to clear statement in only one of the Idylls — The 
Holy Grail. This the poem giving unity to the whole series. Few 
characters in the other Idylls; in The Holy Grail the entire order, with 
a study of the different types of knighthood. 

Legend of the Grail. — The whole body of chivalrous tradition center- 
ing on the quest of the Grail. Meaning of the old legend. Tennyson's 
use of the Grail as a mystic symbol of Christianity, thus as representing 
the higher call of the spirit in opposition to the duties of daily life. 
ReaUty of this conflict throughout Christian history; its place in Ten- 
nyson's spiritual philosophy. 

Percivale's sister. — Value of the conception of womanhood Tennyson 
presents in Percivale's sister. Her monastic life. Type of purity she 
represents. Her vision of the Grail. Vague notion that the Grail -ndll 
work the cure of all human ills; this notion inadequately worked out 
in the poems. 

Sir Galahad. — Galahad as the knight of the Grail peculiarly. His 
quality purity. Contrast the portrayal of him here with the earlier 
Sir Galahad: remarkable evidence of Tennyson's development. 

The vows. — Vision of the knights and vowing the quest of the Grail 
in the King's absence. Arthur's regret at the vows taken. His state- 
ment of the confhct between the higher call and ordinary duty. That 
conflict in every-day human life. Possibility of integrating the two 
calls; compare Browning's philosophy. Tennyson's emphasis of the 
opposition rather than the solution. Compare the conflict in his own 
life. Does this phase of his experience and philosophy furnish one 
explanation of his prevailing gloom? Sublimity and pathos in the 
pursuit of the transcendent ideal. 

The five quests. — The tournament before departing; Percivale's vic- 
tory. His quaUty of character; its corresponding weakness — spiritual 
pride. Hence the land of sand and thorns. Percivale's salvation 
through his fall. 

20 



Galahad's quest. Mystic impresslveness of the allegory. Value and 
limitations of Galahad as an ideal for common life. 

How the vision was granted to Sir Bors. Peculiar impressiveness in 
the ethical lesson here. 

Gawain's easy vice and consequent cynicism. How much more 
completely he fails of the truth than does any unpractical mystic or 
eccentric dreamer. 

Lancelot's story. Dramatic fault in representing his confession here 
and a return to Guinevere afterward. Illustration of the imperfect 
dramatic unity of the Idylls. Yet, in the separate poem, high artistic 
and ethical impression in Lancelot's story. 

Arthur's summing up: how following the higher call disturbs and 
thwarts; yet how imperative is obedience when the higher call truly 
comes. 

The allegory of sense and soul. — Throughout The Holy Grail shad- 
owed forth Tennyson's philosophy of an inevitable conflict between 
the soul and the senses which reaches its conclusion in The Passing of 
Arthur. Tennyson's own statement of this allegory in the epilogue 
To the Queen. 

Measure of truth to human life in this aspect of the philosophy of the 
Idylls. How often the body, which should be servant, becomes master, 
that which should be the means becomes the end, with resulting disas- 
ter. Thus perfect harmony between the spiritual and the natural life 
possible only for a time and under unusual conditions. Compare the 
Greek world; the Italian renaissance; personal life. 

No conception in Tennyson of growth through imperfections and 
misadjustments. His view of statical perfection, any change from 
which would mean decay. Thus realization of Arthur's dream only for 
a brief time in the Order; then rapid degeneration. The only hope 
substitution of one order of society for another. Compare the view of 
the state in Plato's Republic. Contrast this aspect of Tennyson's 
thought with the views of Browning and Goethe. Thus the explanation 
for the prevailing gloom and melancholy in Tennyson's portrayal of 
life in the Idylls. 

The Passing of Arthur. — The gloom inherent in the view of life taken 
in the Idylls as never having received more moving expression than in 
The Passing of Arthur. At the same time in this poem Tennyson's 
supreme portrayal of moral heroism in the presence of inevitable dis- 
aster. This poem Tennyson's masterpiece in profound pathos. 

Story of the battle. Slightly faulty connection in the insertion of 
the earher Morte d' Arthur; yet perfect harmony in mood and spirit 
of the earher with the later poem, thus showing how dominant that mood 
was throughout Tennyson's life. 

21 



The last of Excalibur. Tennyson's emphasis of unquestioning 
obedience. The barge and the Queen. The fate of Arthur as the fate 
of the ideal of chivalry. Marvelous poetry in the closing portion of 
the poem. 

Philosophy of the poem. — Moral heroism of Arthur. How he fulfills 
the teaching to live well even within the gloom. Type of heroism he 
represents. Compare Ulysses. Compare the same spirit in Anglo- 
Saxon Beowulf. Significance of such heroism at the beginning and the 
end of the life of the race. 

Tennyson's view of life as environed by mystery. Type of virtue 
demanded here. Summation of this aspect of Tennyson's philosophy 
in the weird line: 

"From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 
Universal value and application of this ethical philosophy. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"My good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The splinter' d spear-shafts crack and fly, 

The horse and rider reel: 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

Arid when the tide of combat stands, 
Perfume and flowers fall in showers. 

That Ughtly rain from ladies' hands. 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favours fall! 
For them I battle till the end. 

To save from shame and thrall: 
But all my heart is drawn above, 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: 
I never felt the kiss of love. 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 
More bounteous aspects on me beam, 

Me mightier transports move and thrill; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 



A maiden knight — to me is given 
Such hope, I know not fear; 

I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 
That often meet me here. 
22 



I muse on joy that -n-ill not cease, 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure Hhes of eternal peace, 

Whose odours haunt my dreams; 
And, stricken by an angel's hand. 

This mortal aVmour that I wear, 
This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air." 

—From Sir Galahad (published 1842), p. 110. 

"And one there was among us, ever moved 
Among us in white armour, Galahad. 
'God make thee good as thou art beautiful,' 
Said Arthur, when he dubb'd him knight; and none 
In so young youth, was ever made a knight 
Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he heard 
My sister's vision, fill'd me with amaze; 
His eyes became so hke her own, they seem'd 
Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 

But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away 
Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 
"VVTiich made a silken mat-work for her feet; 
And out of this she plaited broad and long ' 
A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
A crimson grail within a silver beam; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him 
Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, 
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 
And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king 
Far m the spiritual city:' and as she spake 
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
On him, and he beUeved in her behef. 

Then came a year of miracle: O brother. 
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, 
Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away, 
And carven with strange figures; and in and out 
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 
Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 
And Merlin call'd it 'The Siege perilous,' 
Perilous for good and ill; 'for there,' he said, 
'No man could sit but he should lose himself:' 
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 
In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, 
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 
Cried, 'If I lose myself, I save myself! ' "' 

—From The Holy Grail (published 1869), pp. 420-421. 
23 



" Of all the Idylls of the King, The Holy Grail seems to me to express 
most my father's highest self. Perhaps this is because I saw him, in 
the writing of this poem more than in the writing of any other, with 
that far away rapt look on his face, which he had whenever he worked 
at a story that touched him greatly, or because I vividly recall the 
inspired way in which he chanted to us the different parts of the poem 
as they were composed." — Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. II, p. 92. 

" Poetry is like shot-silk with many glancing colours. Every reader 
must find his own interpretation according to his ability, and according 
to his sympathy with the poet. The whole is the dream of man coming 
into practical life and ruined by one sin. Birth is a mystery and death 
is a mystery, and in the midst lies the tableland of life, and its struggles 
and performances. It is not the history of one man or of one genera- 
~tion but of a whole cycle of generations." — Tennyson, in conversation 
on the Idylls of the King, Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. II, p. 127. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1 . Compare in music and imagery the earUer studies of the Arthurian 

story with The Holy Grail and The Passing of Arthur. 

2. Compare the study of Sir Galahad in the earher poem of that 

name and in The Holy Grail. 

3. Compare the Morte d' Arthur and The Passing of Arthur. 

4. What is the relative value of the ethical and artistic elements 

in the Idylls? 

5. What are the causes of the prevaiUng melancholy in Tennyson's 

view of hfe? 

6. Which of the Idylls has the highest artistic value, and why? 

7. Which of the Idylls has the highest ethical value, and why? 

8. Is Tennyson's teaching regarding the opposition between the 

higher call and ordinary duties true to hfe? 

9. How far are the lessons of The Holy Grail of universal application? 

10. Compare The Holy Grail and Lowell's Sir LaunfaVs Vision. 

11. Compare The Holy Grail and Wagner's Parsifal. 

12. Compare The Passing of Arthur and the death of Beowulf in 

Beowulf, chapter XI. 

13. The ethical value of Tennyson's philosophy of sense and soul. 

14. In what ways does Tennyson's ethical view resemble that of 

Dante and the middle ages? 

15. Compare Tennyson and Browning in the view of the senses in 

relation to the soul. 

24 



REFERENCES. 



Tennyson, **Sir Galahad; **Morte d' Arthur; **Idylls of the King: 
* Dedication; **The Holy Grail; **The Passing of Arthur; **To the 
Queen. Brooke, Tennyson, pp. 319-336 and 370-391. Garnett, 
*Beowulf, chapter XI, pp. 71-86. Horton, Tennyson, chapter VI. 
Luce, Handbook, chapter XI. Maccallum, * Tennyson's Idylls of the 
King. Tainsh, Study of Tennyson, chapter XII. 



25 



IV. IN MEMORIAM: THE PERIOD OF GRIEF AND 
STRUGGLE. 

LECTURE OUTLINE. 

Introduction. — To turn now to the most autobiographic of Tennyson's 
poems, the one in which he gives his deepest spiritual thought in answer 
to the needs at once of his own hfe and of modem times. In The 
Idylls of the King Tennyson's objective ethical philosophy dealing with 
problems of the family, the state, and the growth and decay of society; 
in In Memoriam his subjective philosophy dealing with the problem 
of faith as a basis of conduct and with what we may dare to believe 
concerning God, freedom and immortahty. 

Occasion of In Memoriam. — History of the friendship between Ten- 
nyson and Arthur Henry Hallam. Character and genius of Hallam; 
his literary remains; opinions of his contemporaries regarding him. 

Sudden death of Hallam in 1833. Sincerity of Tennyson's grief. 
The seventeen years of writing and thinking (ten of which Tennyson 
spent in complete retirement) from the death of Hallam to the publi- 
cation of In Memoriam. Thus the experience the heart of Tennyson's 
owTi development, and the poem representing it a kind of Di\dne 
Comedy of personal life. Compare Tennyson's own statement. 

In Memoriam as a literary masterpiece. — Significance of the personal 
subject of In Memoriam. Contrast other masterpieces: the poem of 
Job, The Agamemnon Trilogy, Faust, The Divine Comedy, The Ring 
and the Book. Expression of the spirit of modem times by Tennyson 
and Browning in making personal life the subject of a great work of 
art. Browning pre-eminently the poet of love, Tennyson of friend- 
ship. 

The literature of friendship. — Studies of friendship in the Greek 
world : compare Homer, ^schylus, Plato, Aristotle. Relation of Ten- 
nyson to the classical spirit. Comparison of In Memoriam to other 
works in the literature of friendship: Shakespeare's Sonnets; Milton's 
Lycidas; Shelley's Adonais. 

Stanza form of In Memoriam. — Peculiar poetic value of the stanza 
used in In Memoriam; significance that Tennyson believed he had 

26 



invented it. Adaptation of this stanza to the different moods of the 
poem. 

Composition of the poem. — In Memoriam not simply a direct expres- 
sion of personal feehng. Lyrics written at different times and loosely 
bound together. Relation of lyrical to dramatic elements. Tennyson 
studying "the working out of a spiritual fact." Compare the direct 
expression of personal feeling in such a lyric as Break, break, break. 

Imagery of the poem. — Tennyson's wonderful skill in using the same 
symbol in different parts of the poem to give unity and at the same time 
point the contrasting moods. Compare the house described in cantos 
VII and CXIX. Compare the Yew; the repeated descriptions of 
Christmas and other significant anniversaries. Extreme care with 
which Tennyson works out every image. Unity of music and imagery. 

The initial attitude of grief. — The blind clinging to sorrow as the only 
remaining bond with love. Expression of the demand for permanence 
that is one of the two fimdamental hungers of the human soul (cantos 
I-IV). 

Grief in words (V). Question as to the personal sincerity of In 
Memoriam. The false comfort of those who tell us grief is common 
(VI). 

•The ship (IX-XIX). Calm and storm on the sea and in the moods 
of the poet. Tennyson's use of nature to express human experience. 

The first Christmas (XXVIII-XXX). — Pain in an anniversary return- 
ing with the absence of those whose presence made it joyous. Yet 
what Christmas suggests and symbolizes; thus serving to introduce 
the first series of spiritual problems. 

First cycle of spiritual reflections (XXXI-XXXVI). — Story of Lazarus. 
The Christian tradition not abrogating the mystery of death. Value 
of the attitude of unreasoning acceptance in Mary. Tennyson's view 
of the blessedness of such faith and the need to leave it undisturbed. 
The personal argument for immortality. The cycle closing with the 
return of the mood of doubt. The series followed by an interlude of 
poems expressing the more personal relation to the friend. 

Second cycle of spiritual reflections (XLV-XLVII). — The mystery of 
personality. Turning from the question what death is to what Hfe is. 
Again the hunger for permanence; a vague pantheism giving no satis- 
factory answer. 

Another -interlude of more personal songs. How these lays are to be 
taken (XLVIII). Need of the friend in the mood when faith is dry 
(L). Effect of sin on the relation to the friend (LI, LII). 

Third cycle of spiritual reflections (LIII-LVI). — Is growth possible 
through sin? Tennyson's view of good and evil: compare Goethe. 
Significance of what Tennyson emphasizes. 

27 



Tennyson's wonderful expression, in cantos LIV-LVI, of the cry of 
despairing longing, typical of the modem spirit in the presence of the 
mystery of the universe and temporarily overwhelmed by the discov- 
eries and generalizations of physical science. The mood Tennyson 
expresses as culminating during the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Service of Tennyson in bringing the deeps of doubt and questioning, 
characteristic of his epoch, to conscious expression in exquisite melody 
and marvelous imagery. 

Close of the first movement of In Memoriam. — Following Tennyson's 
comparison of his poem to The Divine Comedy, its first portion the 
" Inferno." Yet contrast with Dante. Range of problems Tennyson con- 
siders; yet all immediately connected with his personal experience. 
Mood with which the first movement of the poem closes: the recurring 
question; no answer; impossible to wring faith from the spiritual 
universe by struggle; so in half-benumbed condition we must wait in 
the dark. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"It must be remembered that this is a poem, not an actual 
biography. It is founded on our friendship, on the engagement of 
Arthur Hallam to my sister, on his sudden death at Vienna, just before 
the time fixed for their marriage, and on his burial at Clevedon Church. 
The poem concludes with the marriage of my youngest sister Cecilia. 
It was meant to be a kind of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness. 
The sections were written at many different places, and as the phases 
of our intercourse came to my memory and suggested them. I did not 
write them with any view of weaving them into a whole, or for publica- 
tion, until I found that I had written so many. The different moods 
of sorrow as in a drama are dramatically given, and my conviction that 
fear, doubts, and suffering will find answer and reUef only through 
Faith in a God of Love." — Note of Tennyson's concerning In Memo- 
riam, Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, pp. 304, 305. 

"I know not how to express what I have felt. My first sentiment 
was surprise, for, though I now find that you had mentioned the inten- 
tion to my daughter, Julia, she had never told me of the poems. I do 
not speak as another would to praise and admire: few of them indeed 
I have as yet been capable of reading, the grief they express is too much 
akin to that they revive. It is better than any monument which could 
be raised to the memory of my beloved son, it is a more lively and 
enduring testimony to his great virtues and talents that the world 
should know the friendship which existed between you, that posterity 

28 



should associate his name with that of Alfred Tennyson." — From a 
letter of Henry Hallam to Tennyson in 1850, concerning In Memoriam, 
Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, p. 327. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1. Compare the stanza Tennyson uses in In Memoriam with the 

ordinary quatrain; with the stanza used in Fitzgerald's Omar 
Khayyam. 

2. Characteristics of the imagery in the first third of In Memoriam. 

3. What methods does Tennyson employ to give unity to In Memo- 

riam? 

4. Compare the descriptions of the house in cantos VII and CXIX. 

5. Compare the treatment of friendship in In Memoriam and in 

Greek literature and philosophy. 

6. Compare the treatment of friendship in In Memoriam and in the 

Sonnets of Shakespeare. 

7. The life and literary remains of Arthur Henry Hallam. 

8. The relation of lyrical to dramatic elements in In Memoriam. 

9. The personal sincerity of the grief expressed in In Memoriam. 

10. Compare the lyric "Break, break, break," with the opening cantos 

of In Memoriam. 

11. The moral significance of the clinging to sorrow expressed in the 

early cantos of In Memoriam. 

12. Compare In Memoriam and Milton's Lycidas. 

13. Compare In Memoriam and Shelley's Adonais. 

14. What is the value in the artistic expression of moods of doubt 

and questioning? 

15. Compare Tennyson, Goethe and Dante in their view of good 

and evil. 

REFERENCES. 

Tennyson, **" Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones sea;" 
**In Memoriam, cantos I-LVI, inclusive. Azarias, Brother, * Phases 
of Thought and Criticism, pp. 183-215. Bradley, *Commentary on In 
Memoriam. Brooke, Tennyson, pp. 188-228. Chapman, Companion 
to In Memoriam. Corson, Primer of English Verse, pp. 69-77. David- 
son, * Prolegomena to In Memoriam, chapters I-IX. Dawson, Makers 
of Modern English, chapter XXV. Genung, * Tennyson's In Memoriam. 
Luce, Handbook, chapter IX. Masterman, Tennyson as a Religious 
Teacher. Van Dyke, Poetry of Tennyson, pp. 131-151. 

29 



V. m MEMORIAM: THE CANTOS OF FAITH AND LOVE. 
LECTURE OUTLINE. 

Second movement of the poem. — ^The " Purgatorio " beginning with the 
song "Peace, come away!" (LVII). The sense of the uselessness of 
crying out, so dumb acceptance. Sorrow now an abiding companion 
instead of being the cause of a spiritual crisis. 

The new series deaUng with the poet's relation to the friend. His 
love compared to that of a girl loving above her rank (LX) . Yet love 
absolute (LXI) . Love is perfect enough to give up even its own desire 
for an answer if that would hold the friend back (LXII). Love will 
look back upon the one left behind as a great man upon his childhood's 
comrade (LXIV). The reflections now all dealing -w-ith life rather than 
death. 

The blossoming of the crown of thorns. — Canto LXIX expressing 
perfectly the spirit of the second division of the poem. Contrast the 
crown of thorns blossoming, vdth reaching " a hand through time to 
catch the far-off interest of tears." How sorrow does refine and edu- 
cate in compensation for the death it may bring to other aspects of 
life. Nature of the good coming through the ministry of suffering. 
The good coming not because anticipated, but because of the spirit in 
which the sorrow was accepted. 

The second Christmas. — Contrast the mood in cantos LXXVIII and 
LXXXni with that in cantos XXVIII-XXX. Clearer acceptance of 
immortahty: compare canto LXXXII. The tender personal dream of 
what might have been (LXXXIV). 

The second friendship (LXXXV). — Close of the second division of the 
poem with the acceptance of the new friendship. Relation of the new 
to the old. Spirit in which this "primrose of the later year" is offered 
and accepted. 

Third movement of the poem. — Beginning of the "Paradiso" with 
the exultant song of joy and peace in canto LXXXVI. Significance 
that the whole song is a single sentence. This canto an admirable 
example of Tennyson's power to make the stanza-form of In Memoriam 
respond to his more positive and exultant emotions as well as to voice 
the minor music of the sad moods. 

30 



Possible now to brood tenderly, mth a sad joy, over the memoriea 
of the past. 

The new relation to the past. — Reflections over the measure of union 
with the friend possible now. Heart-hunger for the lost human touch 
(XCI). Desire that the friend's spirit might come (XCIII). Ten- 
nyson rising in canto XCV to the dream of spiritual union. This as 
representing the taking of the past up into his own soul. Acceptance 
not by forgetting but by remembering. Compare this experience with 
Dante's Lethe and Eunoe. 

Solution of the problem of doubt. — Canto XCVI complementary to 
canto XXXIII. Need to leave simple faith undisturbed; yet once it 
is broken, need to press on through doubt to the larger faith that in- 
cludes it. Mistake in pulling the chrysalis off from a half-formed 
butterfly; yet once the chrysalis is broken, the only hope to go on and 
grow wings. 

The third Christmas. — Preparation for leaving the home with its 
loved associations (CI) . The dream of reunion that comforts in break- 
ing the associations of youth and friendship (CIII). The new Christ- 
mas in strange surroundings (CIV, CV). Compare in mood in cantos 
XXX and LXXVIII. 

The New Year and the new ideals (CVI). Ability to look forward 
instead of backward, to take the past up into the soul and face the 
future. 

Hallam's character (CIX-CXIII). — Tennyson's pleasure in portraying 
the character of his friend. Influence of Hallam's spirit upon others 
(CX). Ideal of the gentleman exemplified in Hallam (CXI). The 
career the friend might have had (CXIII). 

Knowledge versus wisdom. — Tennyson's view of the life of apprecia- 
tion in relation to the life of the understanding. Thus conception of 
religion Jn relation to science. Value of this aspect of Tennyson's 
philosophy in connection with his whole spiritual contribution. 

Closing cycle of spiritual reflections (CXVII-CXXXI). — Absolute 
acceptance of personal immortality and belief that Time is the sphere 
for the evolution of the soul. This changed attitude due less to intel- 
lectual reasoning than to change in mood and development of inner 
experience : significance. View of science and the hypothesis of physical 
evolution (CXX). Tennyson's acceptance of the results of modem 
science, though with some measure of reluctance. Value of his inte- 
gration of the results of science with the best teachings of religion and 
of the older philosophy. 

Recognition of ceaseless change in the material universe with a reality 
in the spirit to which he can trust. Statement of his highest thought 
of the Divine (CXXIV). Compare canto LIV. 

31 



Tennyson's social philosophy (CXXVII). — Conservatism of Tennyson 
in his view of society as in his attitude toward science. Yet in both 
acceptance of the new. Recognition of the promise of peace and har- 
mony issuing from the storms of social revolution. 

Concluding song. — The long canto celebrating the marriage of Ten- 
nyson's sister a fitting conclusion to the whole poem. Perfect spirit- 
ual faith and glad acceptance of life that breathes through it. Joy in 
the present with full memory of the past. The ideal and dream of 
nobler life that is to be, and connection of this with the broken promise 
of the life that was. 

Closing stanza as "gathering up Aristotle's four causes," and affirm- 
ing Tennyson's faith in answer to the great problems of philosophy. 

The Prelude. — The Prelude presenting a more complete summary of 
Tennyson's spiritual philosophy than even the closing song. Remark- 
able inclusiveness of the Prelude in reference to the theses and prob- 
lems of philosophy. The faith Tennyson affirms in answer to these: 
its source; its significance in relation to modem life. 

Conclusion. — Value of the poem: (1) As a beautiful creation; (2) 
As a revelation of personal experience; (3) As a study of education 
through suffering; (4) As a study of the deeper problems of philosophy 
and religion. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"If a man is merely to be a bundle of sensations, he had better not 
exist at all. He should embark on his career in the spirit of selfless and 
adventurous heroism; should develop his true self by not shirking 
responsibihty, by casting aside all maudlin and introspective morbid- 
ities, and by using his powers cheerfully in accordance with the obvious 
dictates of his moral consciousness, and so, as far as possible, in har- 
mony with what he feels to be the Absolute Right 

It is motive, it is the great purpose which consecrates life. The real 
test of a man is not what he knows, but what he is in himself and in his 
relation to others. For instance, can he battle against his own bad 
inherited instincts, or brave public opinion in the cause of truth? The 
love of God is the true basis of duty, truth, reverence, loyalty, love, 
virtue and work. I believe in these although I feel the emptiness and 
hollowness of much of life. 'Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven 
is perfect.' But don't be a prig. Most young men with anything in 
them make fools of themselves at some time or other." — Tennyson, in 
conversation with a young man about to enter the University, Hallam 
Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, pp. 317, 318. 

32 



"Yet God is love, transcendent, all-pervading! We do not get this 
faith from Nature or the world. If we look at Nature alone, full of 
perfection and imperfection, she tells us that God is disease, murder 
and rapine. We get this faith from ourselves, from what is highest 
within us, which recognizes that there is not one fruitless pang, just as 
there is not one lost good." — Tennyson, in conversation with Hallam 
Tennyson in 1892, Memoir, vol. I, p. 314. 

" He had no kind of sympathy with the theory which would divorce 
art from morals, and I have known no hterary man who had a more 
uniformly high sense of duty in connection with his work. It was a 
sense of duty not only to the living and the unborn, but also, and in a 
very marked degree, to the dead. In speaking of the character of 
Becket, I remember his expressing the dread he always felt, lest he 
should do some injustice to the actions or motives of those who are in 
their graves. He hated with an intense hatred all literary quarrels, 
and rivalries, and jealousies, and his literary judgment seemed to me 
not only singularly sane and un exaggerated, but also singularly unbi- 
assed by his personal likings. ..... 

Your father thought much about religious matters and often dwelt 
with great force on his intuitive con\'iction of immortality, with its 
corollaries of Theism and Providence. These beliefs he held very 
strongly, but they were, I think, wholly detached in his mind from the 
dogmas of particular creeds. ... As all attentive readers of his 
poetry will have perceived, he was much occupied with, and disturbed 
by, the subversive theories that were abroad, but chiefly I think on 
account of their bearing on the great primal beliefs which I have men- 
tioned, which he believed to be the main pillars on which the goodness, 
happiness and dignity of man must ultimately rest." — From recollec- 
tions of Tennyson by W. E. H. Lecky, written for Hallam Tennyson, 
Memoir, vol. II, pp 203, 206. 

TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1. How far may In Memoriam be regarded as a direct expression of 

Tennyson's personal feelings and experience? 

2. Compare Tennyson and Browning in their expression and inter- 

pretation of personal life. 

3. Compare Tennyson and Browning in their treatment of the reh- 

gious problem in modem times. 

4. The range of Tennyson's studies as revealed in In Memoriam. 

5. Tennyson's attitude toward modem science. 

6. Tennyson's relation to ancient philosophy. 

33 



7. The relation of Tennyson to Christianity as revealed in In 

Memoriam. 

8. What grounds are given in the poem for the change in Tenny- 

son's attitude toward the problem of immortality? 

9. Tennyson's view of the relation of knowledge to wisdom. 

10. Tennyson's social philosophy as given in In Memoriam. 

11. Sources of the faith Tennyson affirms in the closing portion of 

In Memoriam. 

12. The range of problems included in the Prelude to In Memoriam. 

13. Compare In Memoriam and The Ring and the Book as literary 

masterpieces. 

14. Compare In Memoriam, Faust and The Divine Comedy as literary 

masterpieces. 



REFERENCES. 

Tennyson, **In Memoriam, Prelude, and from canto LVII to the 
end. Azarias, Brother, * Phases of Thought and Criticism, pp. 215-264. 
Bradley, * Commentary on In Memoriam. Brooke, Tennyson, pp. 
188-228. Carpenter, The Religious Spirit in the Poets, chapter IX. 
Chapman, Companion to In Memoriam. Davidson, * Prolegomena to 
In Memoriam, Introduction and chapters X-XVI. Dawson, Makers 
of Modern English, chapters XXIV, XXV. Genung, * Tennyson's In 
Memoriam. Kingsley, Literary and General Lectures, pp. 101-124. 
Lindsay, Essays, pp. 79-119. Luce, Handbook, chapter IX. Master- 
man, * Tennyson as a Religious Teacher, Sneath, The Mind of Ten- 
nyson. 



34 



VI. THE EXPRESSION OF TENNYSON'S SPIRITUAL 
PHILOSOPHY IN BRIEFER POEMS. 

LECTURE OUTLINE. 

Tennyson's highest self-expression. — The Idylls of the King and In 
Memoriam distinctly Tennyson's masterpieces. Yet both composed of 
exquisite separate poems only loosely bound together in the whole work 
of art. Tennyson distinctively the lyric poet, at his best in the brief 
poems expressing a single mood or phase of thought. Thus any study 
of Tennyson incomplete without a consideration of the wonderful brief 
poems in which his philosophy and his artistic power receive culminat- 
ing e>qDression. 

The Wreck (published 1885). — The Wreck one of the best illustrations 
of the dramatic type among Tennyson's shorter poems. Metrical 
power and pathetic impressiveness of the poem. Tennyson as the poet 
of law. Thus here emphasis of the usual view of life, giving the hell 
of expiation as in Dante, but with no suggestion of the power of recov- 
ery of the human spirit as in Goethe and Browning. Significance of the 
view of life presented. 

Romney's Remorse (published 1889). — A further illustration of Ten- 
nyson's brief dramatic poems and of his philosophy of personal life in 
Romney's Remorse. This poem presenting the complementary prob- 
lem to Andrea del Sarto, and reading as if written in conscious answer to 
BrowTiing's poem. One of the best examples of Tennyson's use of the 
dramatic monologue. Moving pathos of the poem. Beauty of the 
inserted lyric. In this study again a strong affirmation of the conven- 
tional view of hfe with its essential rightness. 

Tennyson's view of society. — Tennyson's social philosophy similar in 
spirit to his view of personal life. Compare the Beautiful City; the 
cantos of In Memoriam speaking of the "Red fool fury of the Seine" 
and the "School boy heat and blind hysterics of the Celt." Tenny- 
son's view thoroughly English, never cosmopolitan. Contrast Goethe. , 
The strength of Tennyson the strength of what is best in conservative 
English aristocracy. His view of the common people always that of 
the artist who looks on sympathetically from the outside, never that of 
one warmly identified with the fife of the people themselves. 

35 



By an Evolutionist (published 1889). — The same spirit in Tennyson's 
cosmic as in his social philosophy. His acceptance of the results of 
physical science, yet combining these with conservatism in religion and 
ethics. Compare the view of old age in By an Evolutionist vnth. that 
in Browning's Rahhi Ben Ezra. Remarkable metrical structure in 
By an Evolutionist. 

The general idew of human progress Tennyson takes in The Dawn. 
Significance that most of these brief expressions of Tennyson's phil- 
osophy come so late in his life. 

The Ancient Sage (published 1885). — The Ancient Sage as summing 
up most consciously and completely Tennyson's attitude toward the 
mystery of life and his philosophy of faith in relation to conduct. Sig- 
nificance in the introductory poem to Fitzgerald. The Ancient Sage 
as in conscious answer to Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam. 
No recognition in Tennyson's poem of the grave dignity of Omar, but 
answer to the picturesque pessimism of youth that takes sentimental 
delight in its own melancholy. Significant that Tennyson had some- 
thing of the same spirit in his own youth; thus the poem showing how 
completely his later thought rises above such sentimental pessimism. 

Tennyson's emphasis of "the will to beheve." Cleaving to the 
"sunnier side of doubt." His teaching regarding what we may dare to 
believe, and act on as if it were true. Value of the lesson not to 

"Take thy dial for thy deity," 
but 

"Make the passing shadow serve thy wiW." 
Compare the emphasis of this lesson in the early Ulysses, in In Memo- 
riam, in The Passing of Arthur. Thus central import of Tennyson's 
teaching regarding moral heroism. 

Further summing up of the mystery and unity of life in " Flower in 
the Crannied WalV and The Higher Pantheism. Relation of this 
thought to Christianity. 

Merlin and the Gleam (published 1889). One poem in which Ten- 
nyson has given a brief spiritual autobiography. Significance of the 
unusual metrical form in Merlin and the Gleam. The motive principle 
of Tennyson's Hfe as revealed in this poem. Range of his artistic 
experience. His own view of his life and work. 

Wages (published 1869). — Another summing up of the fundamental 
attitude of Tennyson's life in the wonderful two-stanza poem Wages. 
Sonorous sweep of the verse. Perfect union of thought and form. An 
excellent example of his artistic power at its best. 

Crossing the Bar (published 1889).— The poem Tennyson desired to 
have placed at the end of every complete edition of his works. Limpid 
music, perfect imagery, marvelous art in the utter simplicity of this 

36 



poem. Illustrating the highest point of Tennyson's art as well as 
gi\'ing the most direct statement of his religious faith. Compare in 
form and content Browning's Epilogue to Asolando. 

Conclusion. — Summary of Tennyson's art: in music, imagery, 
lyrical beauty. Exquisite simplicity with careful adornment. Ex- 
pression always adequate and harmonious to thought and mood and 
almost monotonously melodious. 

Summary of Tennyson's philosophy: in reference to personal life, 
social progress, science and cosmic law, the problems of religion. Ten- 
nyson's acceptance of evolution; his belief in the unity of life and law; 
his faith in God, freedom, immortality and duty; his emphasis of 
heroism in the presence of the mystery of life. 

Sources of Tennyson's message: in experience, in the common con- 
sciousness and religious tradition, in science harmonized with the great 
spiritual thinking of the past. 

Special value of Tennyson's poetry and philosophy for the age to 
which he sang. Permanent worth in his art and message for all time. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"I have just been reading your Poems; I have read certain of them 
over again, and mean to read them over and over till they become my 
poems: this fact, with the inferences that lie in it, is of such emphasis 
in me, I cannot keep it to myself, but must needs acquaint you too -with 
it. If you knew what my relation has been to the thing call'd English 
'Poetry' for many years back, you would think such fact almost sur- 
prising! Truly it is long since in any Enghsh Book, Poetry or Prose, I 
have felt the pulse of a real man's heart as I do in this same. A right 
vahant, true fighting, victorious heart; strong as a lion's, yet gentle, 
loving and full of music: what I call a genuine singer's heart! there 
are tones as of the nightingale; low murmurs as of wood-doves at sum- 
mer noon; everywhere a noble sound as of the free winds and leafy 
woods. The sunniest glow of life dwells in that soul, chequered duly 
with dark streaks from night and Hades: everywhere one feels as if all 
were fill'd with yellow glowing sunlight, some glorious golden Vapour; 
from which form after form bodies itself; naturally, golden forms. In 
one word, there seems to be a note of 'The Eternal Melodies' in this 
man; for which let all other men be thankful and joyful!" — From a 
letter of Thomas Carlyle to Tennyson, dated 7th Dec, 1842, Hallam 
Tennyson, Memoir, vol. I, p. 213. 

"Everyone will have seen men, distinguished in some line of work, 
whose conversation (to take the old figure) either 'smelt too strongly 

37 



of the lamp,' or lay quite apart from their art or craft. TVTiat, through 
all these years, struck me about Tennyson, was that whilst he never 
deviated into poetical language as such, whether in rhetoric or highly 
coloured phrase, yet throughout the substance of his talk the same 
mode of thought, the same imaginative grasp of nature, the same fine- 
ness and gentleness in his view of character, the same forbearance and 
toleration, the aurea mediocritas despised by fools and fanatics, which 
are stamped on his poetry, were constantly perceptible: whilst in the 
easy and as it were unsought choiceness, the conscientious and truth- 
loving precision of his words, the same personal identity revealed itself. 
What a strange charm lay here; how deeply illuminating the whole 
character, as in prolonged intercourse it gradually revealed itself! 
Artist and man, Tennyson was invariably true to himself, or rather, in 
Wordsworth's phrase, he 'moved altogether'; his nature and his 
poetry being harmonious aspects of the same soul." — From recollections 
of Tennyson by F, T. Palgrave, Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, vol. II, 
p. 492. 

" Crossing the Bar was written in my father's eighty-first year, on a 
day in October when we came from Aldworth to Farringford. Before 
reaching Farringford he had the Moaning of the Bar in his mind, and 
after dinner he showed me this poem written out. 

I said, 'That is the crown of your fife's work.' He answered, 'It 
came in a moment.' He explained the 'Pilot' as 'That Di\ane and 
Unseen WTio is always guiding us.' 

A few days before my father's death he said to me: 'Mind you put 
Crossing the Bar at the end of all editions of my poems.'" — Hallam 
Tennyson, Memoir, vol. II, pp. 366, 367. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION. 

1. Compare carefully in metrical structure the brief poems studied. 

2. Merlin and the Gleam as a brief personal autobiography of Ten- 

nyson. 

3. Compare The Wreck and the cathedral scene in the first part of 

Goethe's Faust. 

4. Compare Romney^s Remorse and Browning's Andrea del Sarto. 

5. Why is there so much more consideration of the problems of the 

development and readjustment of society in Tennyson than in 
Browning? 

6. Compare the view of old age in By an Evolutionist and in Brown- 

ing's Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

38 



7. The ethical lesson emphasized in The Ancient Sage. 

8. The relative value of the study of Epicureanism and its failure 

as given in The Ancient Sage and in Browning's Cleon. 

9. The relation of Tennyson's art to his life. 

10. Compare Crossing the Bar and Browning's Epilogue to Asolando. 

11 . In what respects is Tennyson the poet of law and order? 

12. Compare Tennyson and Goethe in cosmopohtanism of view. 

13. The different relations of Tennyson and Browning to Christianity. 

14. Tennyson's gospel of moral heroism. 

15. The relative value of ethical and artistic elements in Tennyson's 

poetry. 

16. The permanent value of Tennyson's spiritual philosophy as com- 

pared with its helpfulness for the nineteenth century. 



REFERENCES. 

Tennyson, *The Wreck; **Romney's Remorse; **By an Evolutionist; 

* Beautiful City; *Dawn; **The Ancient Sage; ** Flower in the Cran- 
nied Wall; *The Higher Pantheism; *De Profundis; * The Human Cry; 
**Merlin and The Gleam; **Wages; ** Crossing the Bar. Brooke, 

* Tennyson, pp. 392-509. Dawson, Makers of Modern English, chap- 
ters XXI and XXII. Dowden, *Studies in Literature, pp. 191-239. 
Dowden, Transcripts and Studies, pp. 153-236. Luce, Handbook, 
chapters XII-XVI. Masterman, * Tennyson as a Religious Teacher. 
Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism, volume VIII, pp. 64^111. Peck, 
What is Good English, pp. 167-194, The Human Side of Tennyson. 
Royce, Studies of Good and Evil, chapter III, Tennyson and Pessimism. 
Sneath, *The Mind of Tennyson. Stedman, Victorian Poets, chapters 
V and VI. Stephen, Studies of a Biographer, volume II, pp. 196-240. 
Van Dyke, Poetry of Tennyson, pp. 221-347. 



39 



BOOK LIST. 

Books starred are of special value in connection with this course; those double- 
starred are texts for study and discussion, or are otherwise of first importance. 

Tennyson, **Works, Globe Edition, complete in one volume. Pp. viii + 

896. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1893. 

The Cambridge Edition, by W. J. Rolfe, pp. xvii + 887, 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1898, is also a good edition in 

one volume, but does not contain some of the latest poems. 
Tennyson, *Early Poems, edited by John Churton Collins. Pp. xlvi + 

317. Methuen & Co., London, 1900. 
Tennyson, **/?i Memoriam, with Arthur Henry Hallam's Poetical 

Remains. Pp. 202. Temple Classics, The Macmillan Co., New 

York, 1899. 
Tennyson, **In Memoriam, annotated by the author. Pp. 265. 

Golden Treasury Series, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1906. 



Azarias, Brother, Phases of Thought and Criticism, pp. 183-264, Spirit- 
ual Sense of In Memoriam. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 

1892. 
Bayne, Peter, Lessons from my Masters, Carlyle, Tennyson and Ruskin, 

pp. 201-364, Alfred Tennyson. Harper & Brothers, New York, 

1879. 
Benson, Arthur Christopher (Christopher Carr, pseudonym), Alfred 

Tennyson. Pp. x + 243. Little Biographies, E. P. Dutton & Co., 

New York, 1904. 
Bolton, Sarah K., Famous English Authors of the Nineteenth Century, 

pp. 256-310, Tennyson. T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, cl890. 
Bradley, A. C, A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam. Pp. xii + 

223. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1901. 
Brightwell, D. Barron, A Concordance to the Entire Works of Alfred 

Tennyson. Pp. xiv + 477. E. Moxon, Son, & Co., London, 1869. 
Brooke, Stopford A., The Poetry of Robert Browning, chapter I, pp. 1-56, 

*Browning and Tennyson. T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1902. 
Brooke, Stopford A., * Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life. 

Pp. iv + 516. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894. 

40 



Carpenter, W. Boyd, The Religious Spirit in the Poets, chapter IX, 

Tennyson, chapter X, Tennyson — In Memoriam, pp. 162-201. T. 

Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1901. 
Cary, Elisabeth L., Tennyson, His Homes, His Friends and His Work. 

Pp. viii + 312. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1898. 
Chapman, Elizabeth Rachel, A Companion to In Memoriam. Pp. 72. 

The Macmillan Co., New York, 1888. 
Chesterton, G. K., and Garnett, Richard, Tennyson. Pp. iv + 40. 

Bookman Biographies. James Pott & Co., New York, 1904. 
Clark, J. Scott, A Study of English and American Poets, pp. 755- 

804, Alfred Tennyson. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 

1900. 
Collins, John Churton, Illustrations of Tennyson. Pp. ix + 186. Chatto 

& Windus, London, 1891. 
Cooke, George Willis, Poets and Problems, pp. 55-169, Tennyson. 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1893. 
Corson, Hiram, A Primer of English Verse. Pp. iv + 232. Ginn & Co., 

Boston, 1892. 
Davidson, Thomas, Prolegomena to In Memoriam. Pp. vi + 177. D. 

C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1897. 
Dawson, W. J., Literary Leaders of Modern England, pp. 61-142, 

Tennyson. Chautauqua Press, Chautauqua, N. Y., 1902. 
Dawson, W. J., The Makers of Modern English: A Popular Handbook 

to the Greater Poets of the Century, pp. 169-269, Tennyson. 

Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1890. 
Devey, Joseph, A Comparative Estimate of Modern English Poets, pp. 

275-336, Tennyson. E. Moxon, Son, & Co., London, 1873. 
Dison, WilHam Macneile, A Primer of Tennyson ivith a Critical Essay. 

Pp. 189. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1896. 
Dowden, Edward, Studies in Literature, 1789-1877, pp. 191-239, Mr. 

Tennyson and Mr. Browning. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trilbner & 

Co., London, 1887. 
Dowden, Edward, Transcripts and Studies, pp. 133-236, Victorian 

Literature. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London, 1888. 
Farrar, Frederick W., Men I Have Known, pp. 1-41, Lord Tennyson. 

T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, cl897. 
Garnett, James M., translator, Beowulf. Pp. lii + 110. Ginn & Co., 

Boston, 1892. 
Gates, Lewis E., Studies and Appreciations, pp. 60-91, Tennyson. The 

Macmillan Co., New York, 1900. 
Genung, John F., Tennyson's In Memoriam, Its Purpose and Its Struct- 
ure. A Study. Pp. vi + 199. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 

1896. 

41 



Griggs, Edward Howard, The Poetry and Philosophy of Tennyson. In 
Primary Education, vol. VII, nos. 7-10; vol. VIII, nos. 1-6. 
September 1899— June 1900. 

Gwynn, Stephen, Tennyson : A Critical Study. Pp. viii + 234. Blackie 
& Son, London, 1899. 

Hallam, Arthur Henry, *Remains in Verse and Prose. Pp. 441. 
Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1863. 

Harrison, Frederic, Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Esti- 
mates, chapter I, pp. 1-47, Tennyson. The Maemillan Co., New 
York, 1900. 

Horton, Robert F., Alfred Tennyson. A Saintly Life. Pp. xi + 323. 
E. P. Button & Co., New York, 1900. 

Hubbard, Elbert, Little Journeys, vol. VI, pp. 51-72, Tennyson. The 
Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y., 1900. 

Hutton, Richard Holt, Literary Essays, pp. 361-436, Tennyson. The 
Maemillan Co., New York, 1888. 

Innes, A. D., Seers and Singers; A Study of Five English Poets. Pp. 
223. A. D. Innes & Co., London, 1893. 

Kingsley, Charles, Literary and General Lectures and Essays, pp. 101- 
124, Tennyson. The Maemillan Co., New York, 1890. 

Lang, Andrew, * Alfred Tennyson. Pp. viii + 233. Modem Enghsh 
Writers, William Blackwood & Sons, London, 1901. 

Lindsay, James, Essays, Literary and Philosophical, pp. 79-119, Phil- 
osophy of Tennyson. William Blackwood & Sons, London, 1896. 

Luce, Morton, A Handbook to the Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Pp. 
vi + 454. The Maemillan Co., New York, 1895. 

Lyall, Alfred, *reww?/sow. Pp.200. English Men of Letters, The Mae- 
millan Co., New York, 1902. 

Maccallum, M. W., * Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story 
from the XVIth Century. Pp. xivH-435. The Maemillan Co., 
New York, 1894. 

Masterman, Charles F. G., *Tennyson as a Religious Teacher. Pp. 
xi + 253. Methuen & Co., London, 1900. 

Moulton, Charles Wells, editor, *The Library of Literary Criticism 
of English and American Authors, vol. VIII, pp. 64-111, Alfred 
Lord Tennyson. The Moulton PubUshing Co., Buffalo, 1904. 

NicoU, W. Robertson, and Wise, Thomas J., editors. Literary Anecdotes 
of the Nineteenth Century: Contributions towards a Literary History 
of the Period, vol. I, pp. 21-27, Arthur Henry Hallam as Advocate 
of Alfred and Charles Tennyson; vol. I, pp. 35-41, An Opinion on 
Tennyson by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; vol. II, pp. 222-272, 
The Building of the Idylls: A Study in Tennyson; vol. II, pp. 
421-441, Tennysoniana. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1895. 

42 



Oliphant, Mrs. M. 0. "W., and Oliphant, F. R., The Victorian Age of 

Literature, vol. I, pp. 212-226, Tennyson. Percival & Co., Lon- 
don, 1892. 
Fallen, Cond£ Benoist, Meaning of the Idylls of the King: An Essay 

in Interpretation. Pp. 115. The American Book Co., New York, 

1904. 
Peck, Harry Thurston, What is Good English? and Other Essays, pp. 

167-194, The Human Side of Tennyson. Dodd, Mead & Co., New 

York, 1899. 
Ritchie, Anne Isabella Thackeray, Records of Tennyson, Ruskin and 

Brovming, pp. 1-72, Tennyson. The Macmillan Co., New York, 

1893. 
Robertson, John M., Essays towards a Critical Method, pp. 233-282, The 

Art of Tennyson. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1889. 
Royce, Josiah, Studies of Good and Evil, chapter III, pp. 76-88, Tenny- 
son and Pessimism. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1898. 
Saintsbiuy, George, Corrected Impressions. Essays on Victorian 

Writers, pp. 21-40, Tennyson. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1899. 
Scudder, Vida D., The Life of The Spirit in the Modern English Poets. 

Pp. v+349. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1895. 
Sharp, Amy, Victorian Poets, pp. 1-39, Alfred Tennyson. Methuen & 

Co., London, 1891. 
Sneath, E. Hershey, The Mind of Tennyson. His Thoughts on God, 

Freedom, and Immortality. Pp. viii+193. Charles Scribner's 

Sons, New York, 1900. 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence, Victorian Poets, chapters V, VI, pp. 

150-233, Tennyson. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1893. 
Stephen, Leslie, Studies of a Biographer, vol. II, pp. 196-240, The Life 

of Tennyson. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1898. 
Strong, Augustus Hopkins, The Great Poets and Their Theology, pp. 

449-524, Tennyson. The American Baptist Pubhcation Society, 

Philadelphia, 1897. 
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, Miscellanies, pp. 219-259, Tennyson 

and Musset. Chatto & Windus, London, 1886. 
Symonds, John Addington, Essays Speculative and Suggestive, vol. II, 

pp. 225-277, A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry. 

Chapman & Hall, London, 1890. 
Taine, H. A., History of English Literature, translated by H. Van Laun, 

chapter VI, pp. 518-541, Tennyson. Henry Holt & Co., New 

York, 1886. 
Tainsh, Edward Campbell, A Study of the Works of Alfred Lord Tenny- 
son, Poet Laureate. Pp. xi+312. The Macmillan Co., New York, 

1893. 

43 



Tennyson, Hallam, ** Alfred Lord Tennyson. A Memoir by His Son. 

2 vols. Pp. xxii+516 and vii + 551. The Macmillan Co., New 

York, 1897. Also in new edition, 2 vols, in one, The Macmillan 

Co., 1905. 
VanDyke, Henry, Alfred Tennyson. In Warner's Library of the World's 

Best Literature, vol. 25, pp. 14581-14587. R. S. Peale & J. A. 

Hill, New York, cl897. Reprinted in Studies of Great Authors: 

Poets (Warner Classics), pp. 113-130. Doubleday, McClure Co., 

New York, 1899. 
VanDyke, Henry, *The Poetry of Tennyson. Pp. xvi+437. Charles 

Scribner's Sons, New York, 1898. 
Wace, Walter E., Alfred Tennyson, His Life and Works. Pp. vii+203. 

Macniven & Wallace, Edinburgh, 1881. 
Walker, Hugh, The Age of Tennyson. Pp. x+309. Handbooks of 

EngHsh Literature, edited by Professor Hales, George Bell & Sons, 

London, 1900. 
Walker, Hugh, The Greater Victorian Poets. Pp. 332. The Macmillan 

Co., New York, 1895. 
Walters, J. Cuming, Tennyson: Poet, Philosopher, Idealist. Studies 

of the Life, Work, and Teaching of the Poet Laureate. Pp. viii-t- 

370. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London, 1893. 
Ward, William G., Tennyson's Debt to Environment. A Study of Ten- 
nyson's England as an Introduction to His Poems. Pp. 100. 
\ Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1898. 
Waugh, Arthur, Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Study of His Life and Worfc. 

Pp. x+332. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1893. 



44 



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The Man and the Artist ; as Revealed in His Own Words 

Both books compiled and annotated by Friedrich Kerst. 

Translated and edited, with additional notes by 

Henry Edward Krehbiel. 

i2mo, uncut edges, gilt top, decorated cover. 

Price, each, $1.00 net ; postage, loc. 

" It would be difficult to find in whole music libraries any more graphic 
presentation of Mozart's or Beethoven's personality than in these few lines 
drawn from their letters and notebooks, their biographers and even their 
favorite authors. The style is the man himself. The text, in numbered 
paragraphs, is a moving flashlight on the life and environment of each, 
while the missing context is sufficiently indicated by the editor and com- 
pter." — The Evening Sun, (New York)^ ___^ 

THE CITY THAT WAS 

A Requiem of Old San Francisco 

By Will Irwin. 
lamo, uncut edges, board covers, 50c. net ; postage, 4c. 

A vivid pen picture of the city with " its flavor of the Arabian Nights " 
as it was before the earthquake. The book presents a picture as true to its 
subject as a photograph, but with all the charm of an impressionistic pamt- 
ing. It will occupy a high place in the literature of the San Francisco of 
the past. 

Descriptive Circulars of the Above Books Sent oo Application 

B. W. Huebsch, Publisher, New York 



